The Ai director, I think we can all safely say, does not vary enough. It pretty much just spawns idle infected in random spots while spawning boss infected and panic events on a regular basis and about 1 witch and 1 tank per map. We all know it could be way more awesome.

Well, Valve said that they will use it more of their games. Just imagine Half Life 2 Episode 3 with the combine being spawned strategically by the AI director. The bosses will be hunters, combine elite squads and maybe a strider.

It isn't really "strategically" though. It's just sort of random. As I've said before, it isn't really an AI "director" in the sense that it thinks at all. You could completely replicate it with a couple of d100 charts.

Despite tracking all these things and probably having some pretty hard coding, the actually net effect is tiny. The difference between players owning and players getting owned is only a few infected and a few seconds more or less of special infected spawning time or mobs. So yes, it does vary, but how much really? The answer is, not that much, and that makes things pretty unexciting.

I'm trying to track more info down about the sequel. It's claiming a November of this year release though. The summary given honestly seems to be the promises made about the first game, which really they should have accomplished, but if it's closer to what I had been expecting I'd probably be ok with it. Also, I'm probably way off, but this title might experiment with the pricing of the game. Valve made a big deal about how well L4D sold when it was half price, they might release it at 20 dollars. Wishful thinking I'm sure but it would be interesting to see.

I always wondered why you couldn't just pick up an axe or somesuch to fight zombies with. Also, customizable guns would be cool, such as taping a kitchen knife to the underside of a pistol, thus turning it into a bayonet.

EDIT: THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU VALVE? We don't talk like that in the south, only about 15% of the southern population has that bad of an accent! Regionist BASTARDS!

I always wondered why you couldn't just pick up an axe or somesuch to fight zombies with. Also, customizable guns would be cool, such as taping a kitchen knife to the underside of a pistol, thus turning it into a bayonet.

EDIT: THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU VALVE? We don't talk like that in the south, only about 15% of the southern population has that bad of an accent! Regionist BASTARDS!

Valve has a long tradition of going with the cartoonized accent; even when they had actual austrialians on the team they went with a fake australian accent for the sniper.